Chapter 429 p.m. （EST）
No one could spot a bad idea faster than Gwen—so Allie tried her next, punching in the number with her thumb as soon as she
had a couple of bars on her Nokia. By then traffic had forced her to slow down and she was creeping along at an agonizing
forty miles an hour, hemmed in on all sides.
When Gwen didn’t answer at home, Allie tried Tana Nighswander. Gwen spent as much time there as she did at her own place,
looking after the baby while Tana worked.
Only Tana was at home and picked up on the second ring.
“Tana? It’s Allie, Allison Shiner? I’m Gwen’s friend, in New York?”
“Oh, right. You’re Donovan’s lady. Did you guys set a date yet?”
Any reply to that question would end in tears, and Allie couldn’t afford tears right now, so she pretended she hadn’t heard.
“Is Gwen there? I’m having a little emergency.”
“You’re outta luck. She’s out there dealing with everyone else’s emergencies today. She’s riding in the ambalance this afternoon.”
“When will she be back?”
“She don’t get off her shift till midnight. What’s wrong? Can you tell me?”
“I’m just . . . fleeing the country like my life depends on it. Like someone’s life depends on it, anyway.” She laughed. It
sounded like a sob.
“Aw, c’mon, getting married to the McBride kid can’t be that bad.”
Allie opened her mouth to reply that it wasn’t that, it was nothing to do with Van—and something tightened in her throat, made it impossible to force out any sound.
And for an instant she was back with Van in the hospital after he cracked his head and he was half turned away from her.
You coulda died, you big dumb idiot, she said, trying to be sweet and funny and angry with him at the same time.
My parents already put a deposit down on the venue.
Think how steamed they’d be if we had to use it for your funeral instead
of our wedding.
On the bright side, he said, without looking at her, maybe after the funeral Donna would throw you a pity fuck. A little comfort for the grieving widow. I don’t think Donna is
gay, but she’s pretty much up for anything when she’s drunk.
When Tana spoke again—after a long and awkward silence—she sounded awed. “No. Way. Is this real runaway-bride-type shit? Come on, girl. Don’t hold back. I gotta have some details. The only romantic misadventures
in these parts is when the batteries die in my vibrator.”
Allie shouted with laughter. The cry of her own voice was so loud she shocked herself and almost fumbled her phone. She hadn’t
known she could laugh on a day like this.
“It’s not like that,” Allie said. “I mean, I’m not running away. I already ran away. Van learned some things about me—what
I’m really like, behind closed doors—and it ruined me for him.” She let out a breathless, choked laugh and said, “I’m glad
for him in a way. There never was a sunnier fella than Van. He deserves better.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Tana Nighswander said. “What could he find out to ruin you for him? Did you have a pussy hair out of
place one night or something?”
Allie laughed again, almost a scream of laughter. “Jesus! I never heard such smut. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“Probably best not to kiss my mother. Likely get an STD from her, fuckin’ skag.”
It was the unlikeliest of all things, in that moment: to find herself on the edge of giggles, on the edge of tears.
Tana’s rude mouth shocked and inspired her.
Allie had always admired people who did not need to look at polling data to have an opinion, that 30 percent of people who were unafraid to say the wrong thing.
Allie always felt best when agreeing with others herself.
Her father said, with a kind of gentle sadness, as if discussing a disability, that she was a compulsive pleaser.
She always found it thrilling to be in the company of someone with views of their own.
She liked to mold herself to them, to make herself the thing that made them happy.
Of course, if she hadn’t tried so hard to be the things Van wanted her to be, she might’ve saved them all a lot of unhappiness.
Allie saw the exit for the airport coming up on her right, hit her blinker, and began crossing from one lane to the next,
jamming herself into any opening, horns wailing and squalling in a chorus of disdain.
“What’s going on?” Tana said. “Did you just drive by a traffic accident?”
“Trying not to cause one,” Allie said.
“Do you want to leave a message for Gwen? Can she call you back? I know midnight is late, but—”
“I’ll be on a plane by then. I hope. There’s a flight to London in two hours and I have to be on it. It’s kinda life or death.”
“Oh,” Tana said. Then she said, “Arthur’s in London. The old man. I love that dude to pieces—no one ever paid a higher price
for loaning a girl a hoodie.”
“I’ll let him know you wished him well,” Allie said. She didn’t add, if I’m still alive tomorrow.
“You got a message you want me to pass on to Gwen?” Tana asked again.
“Tell her—” Allie struggled to think of a message she could safely pass through the medium of Tana Nighswander, some way to
alert Gwen about Horation Matthews and the threat to BA 238 to London. But she didn’t have the wit for it, not after a bottle
of wine and forty minutes of driving faster than she had ever driven in her life. She said, “Tell Gwen I said ‘Happy Easter,’
and I’ll try to call her from the other side of the pond.”
“Okay,” Tana said uncertainly. “I wish I could help, whatever it is. I wish you felt okay talking about it with me. But I won’t keep after you, and I’ll let Gwen know.
Tell you what, Easter isn’t really her holiday.
She always gets moody around this time of year.
Withdrawn, you know? You’d think they were going to crucify Christ all over again.
And someone hired her to pound in the nails. ”